Language to Create User-Friendly Web Applications

Question

I wish to create web application for users. So far, I have been developing mock-ups on PowerPoint.

I've asked around and I've been told to study HTML, Javascript, CSS. The books I find from https://www.allitebooks.in/ are for super-beginners, i.e. how to write "hello world", how to use css to select font and color.

Then I saw that Duolingo wrote it's website in Scala. To me, Duolingo is a user-friendly, easy-to-use website that allows user interactions to type, drag-and-drop.

But can Scala be useful?

Right now, I am looking to create a web application that takes user input and dynamically updates webpages. The web application is mostly graphics (I'm more of a visual person)

Also, user should be able to drag and drop things. For instance, if there is a bowl of fruit, how to allow users to type in description, and drag it where they wish?

One more thing. If user decides to save data, it should be saved on the cloud (user has account, but they don't have to download software).

Application is free for individual users, but huge organizations need to pay nominal fee.

Answer 1

A website being user-friendly doesn't have anything to do with what language it was built with. A good design is what makes a website more appealing and as you said user-friendly. Designs are typically made in softwares like Photoshop, Sketch,Xd... Now once you have a design you like, comes the web dev part of building a website. Typically this is split into two parts:

• Frontend : Here you implement the design using HTML, CSS and JS. There are no alternatives as browsers only understand these languages. HTML is used to create the structure of the design. CSS is used to style the different elements. JS is a programming language used to make pages more dynamic.

• Backend: Here we deal with tasks than need to be tackled on the server i.e Login, singup,send email etc. Now because a server can be thought of just being a computer,you can technically use any language that has capabilities to make http requests. Here Scala can be used. Typical languages include PHP, Python, NodeJS etc.

I kept this brief and didn't want to go in much detail, just to paint a picture of what is used for which purpose. I recommend before thinking about building a website like duolingo, to take some kind of course that explains in detail how websites are built.